State awards UB $1 million for supercomputer expansion

Submitted

The University at Buffalo will receive $1
million from New York state to make its downtown Buffalo supercomputing center
more accessible to businesses in Western New York and beyond.

The award, announced Wednesday through Gov.
Andrew M. Cuomo's Regional Economic Development Council initiative, will fund
the purchase of computer servers, software and other components for the Center for
Computational Research.

UB will make those resources available to
industry, such as Sentient Science, IBC Digital, CUBRC, Empire Visual Effects
and other companies looking to innovate through high-performance computing and
big-data analytics.

Specifically, the funding will:

•Provide industry in Western New York
and New York state with access to dedicated advanced computing resources to
foster innovation and economic development.

•Provide the same partners with the
expertise necessary to leverage high-performance computing and big-data
analytic resources to improve productivity and assist in new product
development.

•Support the activities of UB's New
York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, the New
York State Center of Excellence in Materials Informatics, and other industries
that develop around these organizations.

•Support the activities of the New York
State High Performance Computing Consortium, a program of Empire State
Development's NYSTAR initiative.

Cuomo, who created the Regional Economic
Development Council initiative in 2011, said the program has redesigned the
state's economic development efforts from a top-down model to a
community-based, performance-driven approach.

"In the last three years, we have put New York's
fiscal house in order by controlling spending and cutting taxes, and the global
business community has taken notice. We are transforming New York state into a
top destination for companies from around the world to locate, invest and grow
with initiatives like START-UP NY to provide tax-free areas and support to
businesses," he said.

Alexander N. Cartwright, UB vice president for
research and economic development, said the funding will allow UB to acquire
resources that will greatly improve the center's ability to assist local and
state businesses innovate and develop new products.

"With this award, CCR will provide our regional
and New York state industrial partners with on-demand, immediate access to
high-performance computing and data-analytics resources (hardware, software and
consulting services) that will improve productivity, assist in new product
development, foster innovation and economic development," he said. "We'd like
to thank Gov. Cuomo for leadership in recognizing how these resources will give
our industrial partners the competitive advantage they need in the global
marketplace."

Home of the region's largest computing system -
and one the largest in the state - the CCR is located in UB's New York State Center
of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, 701 Ellicott St., within the
Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. It already is helping attract business, such as
software and sensor company Sentient Science, to Western New York.

"Not every company can support the advanced
computing infrastructure or expert personnel that's required in some industries
for innovative product development," said Thomas Furlani, CCR director. "As a
result, many are at a competitive disadvantage; it takes them longer and costs
more to bring new products to the marketplace.

"In addition to supporting faculty-led research
at UB, one of CCR's main goals is to promote economic development, especially
in Western New York," Furlani said. "These resources will enable us to help
business foster innovation, enable rational design and reduce the time it takes
to develop products, all of which are necessary to be competitive in today's
world-based economy."

The center's importance to economic development
and basic research will only grow, Furlani said, as the medical campus expands
and the region continues to pivot more toward a high-tech, advanced
manufacturing-based economy. It also will play a vital role in the Center for
Excellence in Materials Informatics, which, among other things, seeks to
develop and commercialize new materials for manufacturing and industry.

The funding is among more than $60 million that
Cuomo awarded to Western New York-based endeavors on Wednesday. UB President
Satish K. Tripathi and local businessman Howard A. Zemsky are co-chairs of the
Western New York Regional Economic Development Council. Nearly $716 million was
awarded statewide Wednesday.